Hi Folks :
Been in contact with the BC Park Rangers for Strathcona Park, and they have cleaned up and flown out the old wood stove in the cabin. So there is NO STOVE in the cabin anymore. So please bring your stove !!. They did this at the end of October of 2009. There will be no new stove in there at all, due to the aging of the cabin and the high fire risk to it. Signs are up at the trail head, at the Rangers Cabin and at the cabin itself. Have a good winter.

On a kind of related point; a group of us slowshoed/skied out to kwai lake this weekend and met 3 dudes who were hoping to get out to Sid's cabin. They left an hour before us; two were wearing jeans and steel toed boots, one was in sweat pants and old tennis shoes.

We caught up to them at the ranger cabin where we found them soaking wet, horribly tired from postholing the entire way in to that point and amazed at how comfortable we were.

Did you mention to the "dudes" that there are snowshoe rentals at the raven lodge.I don't spend much time around forbidden plateau but that sucks there is no stove at sids. I think there should be more Cabins in the park.

Careful John, You might get run out of town for speaking heresy like that! I somewhat agree with you and think that simple huts, like the Wheaton hut (and outhouses) placed in the right locations can help lessen the impact of humans.

Imagine 4 or 5 huts placed along the route on the Golden Hinde Traverse? I bet I'll get some hate mail for saying that.

Prother now your talking. that would make a great winter ski traverse from Elk river down to arnica lake. Ya just basic little huts for people to use. I think in the Rockies they are quite popular.
BC parks and other groups should be actively encouraging people to use parks more. Definitely some areas in the park should have zero development. But in some areas a cabin and or better trails would help more people enjoy the Park. Why be exclusive?

Cannot agree more with Prother. Many of our parks and protected areas could be designated for special initiatives such as having traverse shelters and even wheelchair accessible routes (thinking of Cape Scott on this one). We do it for rivers and lakes using: catch and release: or fly fishing only; or no motors. We have the land, let's build in destination tourism and activity through specific designations. While it would require lots of public/stakeholder discussion, virtually every decision down the road could be reversible if found not to be appropriate for a given area.

I should say that I am in favour of huts and cabins in popular areas where they would help mitigate human impact, yet not as a way to attract people into a pristine area.

Regarding Strathcona Park and before my time there... I think in the 1960's, there were plans to build cabins at Circlet Lake, near Mt Albert Edward and another at Cream Lake, near Mt Septimus. Funding problems or what ever, these huts never got built. If they had, what would those locations look like now?

Circlet Lake now has a dozen or more tent platforms along it's eastern shore and an overflow camping area at its western end. As well, people often camp on a bench to the lakes north, against Park regulations. There are no set limits to the number of people allowed to camp in the area by BC Parks. If a cabin had been built at Circlet Lk, there would likely be a system of registration and a limit of people allowed into the area... Maybe less impact? I think so.

Cream Lake is a very popular staging area for climbs up Mt Septimus, Mt Rosseau and the Misthorns, as well as a general hiking destination. The official park status of the area is that it is random camping which means **** where ever you want and pay $5 per person per day. If there were a cabin and outhouse at Cream Lk, maybe it would be more costly, but might it be better controlled?

A cabin or even an outhouse on the route to Comox Glacier, at the Frog Pond, might mitigate the damage done to this tarn and camping location. I wouldnt drink water from the Frog Pond, if it were filtered and boiled twice, after noting the scads of people crapping all over the area and dogs swimming in the pond.

Cabins and outhouses might intrude on an area, but they can also be a way to mitigate an already overused area by humans. As we find more people accessing certain backcountry areas, we need to find ways to mitigate their impact and cabins might just be one solution..

No more infastructure in our parks period! They are supposed to preserve the "wilderness" experience for all for the future. Sids' cabin and others like it were built long ago before human pressure was so immense. More junk = more people = more damage = more costs to users